


Fastest Thing on Two Feet

by Peanut_McNut



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Destiel - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-18
Updated: 2011-11-18
Packaged: 2017-10-26 05:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/279306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peanut_McNut/pseuds/Peanut_McNut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean had once asked Castiel if there was drinking in Heaven. The angel had said no. Dean’s pretty sure he knows the reason why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fastest Thing on Two Feet

**Author's Note:**

> The beginning is set during season 5’s “Abandon All Hope.” Not sure it’s exactly on tone with that episode, so maybe this is a little cracky, but I’ll let you guys decide that.

Truth be told, this was Jo’s fault. It all started when she wanted to see if she could out drink Castiel. She'd figured that being new to drinking and all, he would be a complete lightweight. She'd been wrong. The angel downed shot after shot after shot after ten more shots, all without feeling a thing.

Jo had been forced to bow out early, but that hadn’t been the end of it.

Dean had thought the angel would be a goner the moment Castiel agreed to a drink-off with Ellen. The woman is hard as nails and badass as anything, plus she  _owns_  a damn bar. Castiel shouldn't have stood a chance. But once again, the angel had downed more than enough hunter’s helper to float Dean’s, Sam’s, and Bobby’s respective boats for at least three days and declared that he thought he  _might_  be starting to feel something. Ellen had conceded to Castiel.

It should have been done then. After the traditional pre-hunt portrait, Bobby, Ellen, and Jo had decided to call it a night, leaving the boys to their own devices, a fact that made Dean oddly happy. Jo had been making eyes at an oblivious Castiel all night. While Dean would love to be able to blame his relief on the fact that Jo had turned him down only a few hours earlier, it wouldn’t be entirely truthful. And Dean was a lot of not good things, but he prided himself on being at least part of the way honest at all times. Maybe it hurt his ego a little that Jo would rather listen to Cass give her the “it’s our last night on Earth” speech rather than Dean, but the idea that Cass might ever want to give her that speech over some other people, did not sit well with him.

In hindsight, maybe Dean should have taken the bottles away from Castiel at that point. In his defense, however, the angel didn’t seem to be feeling it at all. He was every bit his normal, “I don’t understand your reference,” stiff as an angel-statue self. Still, one could argue that the blame could be put on Dean.

Except for the fact that it is absolutely and undeniably all Sam’s fault.

They sit in the kitchen talking, remembering the good times and ignoring the bad. Dean and Sam nurse their beers, while Castiel works on what had been an unopened bottle of tequila he had acquired from the back of Bobby’s liquor cabinet.

“You know,” Sam said, grinning at them in a way only drunk Sam can, “This is about the time the frat parties would start to get crazy.”

Sam finishes with a strange flourish of his arms, causing Dean to choke on his beer. Recovering, he smirks at his brother, “Aw, that’s adorable. I love it when you pretend you weren’t a complete nerd in college.”

“I had more fun that you think I did.”

“You can only alphabetize your collection of restaurant sugar packets so many times, Sammy.”

Dean comes to the conclusion that while drunken Sam grinning from ear to ear is funny, drunk Sam bitch-facing at him is down right hilarious.

“I was ten, Dean! When are you going to let it go?”

Dean smirks as he raises his bottle to his lips. Castiel, who had been studying the complexities of the battered, chicken-shaped salt and pepper shakers on Bobby’s table, looks up at that.

“What is it you would have been doing at these educational gatherings?”

The angel’s words come out far slower and a lot more slurred than Dean has ever heard. In some ways, it’s endearing seeing Cass let loose a little bit. On the other hand, Dean still remembers the version of Castiel he’d met when Zachariah had back-to-the-futured his ass and damned if he will ever let this Cass fall that far.

But this is different. This is just for fun. Hell, in a few hours their futures will be null and void anyway, so Dean figures he ought to enjoy it while he can.

“Welcome to the conversation, Cass,” Dean said, “but we'd moved on from that. Try to keep up.”

Sam lets out a louder than normal laugh, “They weren’t educational!”

“I thought humans when to college to --”

“Get more knowledge?” Dean asks, interrupting, “Nah, I think that part’s only like seven percent of the actual college experience. The rest is scrounging for booze, trying and failing to get laid, and playing ultimate Frisbee or some crap like that.”

“No, it’s not!”

“Four percent?” Dean amends, with a winning smile that Sam chooses to ignore.

“To answer your question Cass, you do stuff like drink and give each other cool nicknames and wear togas and try to get stuff over on the dean of the school by playing pranks on him like --”

“Like, putting a horse in the dean’s office? Sam, that’s the plot of 'Animal House'.”

"-- and you dare each other to do insane stuff like streak or ring door bells and runaway. Things like that.”

“Streak?” Castiel asks.

The angel tilts his head in confusion, a gesture Dean is more than a little acquainted with. This time is different though, as Castiel goes just a little bit farther than normal, his head almost laying on his left shoulder. And god, what Dean wouldn’t give for his cell phone to not be charging in that moment, because while he might not survive long enough to actually watch the video (or better yet, torment his brother and his angel with it), he decides it should exist for prosperity’s sake if nothing else.

“You take off your shirt and your pants and your underwear and you just… You just run around out in public.”

“So…” Castiel says, trailing off as if he’s deep in thought, nodding in some kind of agreement. He nods and nods and keeps on nodding. Dean wonders if whacking the angel on the head to get him unstuck when Castiel finally says, “A streaker is naked.”

“Yes,” Sam answers, even though it wasn’t a question.

“This person also runs around outside.”

Dean sighs, “I think we’ve established that, Cass.”

“Wouldn’t they be cold?” Castiel asks and Dean tries really hard not to think that the angel’s wide-eyed look of genuine concern for any would-be streaker isn’t adorable, “Where do they run?”

“Anywhere! You can run around your house or through the party you’re throwing. You can run through your yard and down your street. You yell stuff like “We’re going streaking! Ahhh!”" Sam throws his hands up in the air, almost toppling himself over in the process, “You just run down random streets until you come across you wife and her friends, ‘cause you know, they’re driving down the street too --”

“And now we’ve moved on to 'Old School'. All right, I think,” Dean says, reaching over and pulling the beer out of Sam’s hand, “you’ve had enough. Come on, Sasquatch. It’s bedtime for you.”

His little brother just smiles up at him as Dean hauls him up off the chair. For the most part Sam is steady on his feet, making his way up the stairs without too much stumbling around. Dean still follows him, making sure that his brother gets settled in his room upstairs, laying Sam on his stomach. He goes in search of a trash can to leave next to the bed. Considering Sam’s relative ease of mobility, he doesn’t think it’ll be necessary, but better safe than sorry.

By the time Dean returns, Sam is dead to the world. Sighing, Dean throws a blanket over his gigantic little brother. It’s an act that reminds him of the many nights they spent alone when they were kids. It was years before both boys were old enough to go with their dad on hunts, so most of the parent-type stuff fell to Dean. Tucking little Sammy in at night had only been one of his duties.

Sam smiles in his sleep and Dean finds himself returning it. He ruffles his little brother’s stupid floppy hair, making sure to brush it out of his face before he turns and leaves the room. Pausing in the hallway, Dean glances at the room across the hall that he’s called his for as long as he can remember. Sighing, he heads back down the stairs, resigned to the fact that this is going to be another sleepless night.

He stops in the kitchen, not at all surprised to find it Cass-less. The angel had a habit of popping in and out without warning. For the most part Dean is used to it, the times Cass decides to reappear two inches from his face notwithstanding. He grins to himself, remembering all the “personal space” lectures he’s given Cass in the past few months. Either Dean’s a really bad teacher or Cass just doesn’t give a damn, because his lessons haven’t helped. Hell, it’s become more of a joke than anything else. It’s kind of their thing. Chuckling to himself, he snags his beer from the table.

Dean heads to the porch, making sure he holds on to the door to keep it from slamming shut. It’s a cool night. The air is crisp, waking Dean up a bit as he draws in a few deep breaths. He takes a seat on the steps, raising his eyes to the sky. Stars shine bright on this moonless night, twinkling down at him. If this really is his last night on Earth, it's a beautiful one.

He sits like that for what feels like a long time, before he becomes aware of a distant sound somewhere off to his left. He lowers his eyes, bringing his beer to his lips as he scans Bobby’s salvage yard and is presented with two unexpected things. First, he gets a flash of beige flying across his field of vision, the very same color of trench coat he’s seen Castiel wear everyday for the entire time he’s known the angel.

This isn’t necessarily disturbing or surprising. It’s the second thing he sees that has Dean pausing mid-drink. Or rather, what he doesn’t see. The blur that is Castiel is already by him, before Dean is able to react.

“What the hell? Cass!” Dean calls after the speeding angel.

Abandoning his bottle of beer to the ground, Dean takes off after Castiel. The angel is fast for someone who flits around from place to place.

“Stop running, damn it!” Dean huffs out, boots pounding against the pavement.

The only response he gets is a long drawn out, “Ahhh!” that echos through the shadowy junkyard. A scrap of blue trails behind Castiel as they round a corner, heading towards the garage. He’s able to grab Castiel once they’re inside, taking hold of one of the angel’s coat sleeves. He pins Castiel against the Impala, the car still parked in Bobby’s garage. Dean had been working on her earlier.

“What do you think you’re doing, Cass?” Dean asks between breaths.

“Streaking,” Castiel replies, grinning at Dean.

He’d once asked Castiel if there was drinking in Heaven. The angel had said no. Dean’s pretty sure he now knows the reason why.

“Well yeah, that part is kind of obvious,” his eyes fall from the angel’s face for a moment. With a smirk, Dean raises something to Castiel’s eye level, “Tie?”

“Sam didn’t say anything about taking off ties.”

“Guess that explains the trench coat.”

“I thought it might be cold.”

Dean laughs, “And are you?”

“Not right now,” Castiel replies, his grin widening.

It takes Dean a moment, but he catches on, glancing down to see he’s leaning against an almost naked Castiel. Now, he’d be lying if he said he’d never, ever thought about this kind of thing, but this wasn’t exactly the situation Dean had imagined.

“Oh… I, uh-”

“Dean,” Castiel says. His voice is suddenly quiet. Commanding.

Dean's eyes flick back up just in time for Castiel to kiss him, without preamble. He wants to be able to say that he lived up to his reputation as the 'Righteous Man' in that moment, whatever the hell that means. Dean would love to be able to say that he respected the fact that Castiel is at least somewhat inebriated and that he would never take advantage of the situation. In fact, Dean has every intention of doing the honorable thing here.

Then Dean feels Castiel’s tongue slide slowly across his bottom lip and all bets are off.

He grabs the angel’s lapels, yanking him closer to him as he presses Castiel into the side of the Impala. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he notices Castiel’s hands twist and pull at his hair, too lost in the feel of the angel’s tongue running along the roof of his mouth. It’s frenzied. It’s heated. It’s the only time they’re ever going to get to do this and why in the hell hadn’t they done this earlier? Why had he been thinking about stopping this?

The smell of alcohol on Castiel’s breath reminds him why. The angel starts kissing along Dean’s jawline, long fingers somehow now playing at the hem of his t-shirt and he knows where this is going and god, does Dean ever want it.

“Cass, wait,” he says, pulling back as he takes the angel’s wayward hands in his.

The look in Castiel’s eyes almost makes Dean change his mind. Pupils blown wide, Castiel stares at him like he might devour him. Lust is there yes, but something else is lurking in those blue depths and Dean’s not sure what it is. All he knows is he can’t let Castiel make this kind of decision when he’s not himself. The guy's a freaking angel for god sakes, however fallen he might be. He probably shouldn't be doing this, period. Least of all with someone like Dean.

Castiel has other ideas, however, “I’m done waiting.”

Dean is inclined to agree with him. He lets out a moan as the angel leans in to kiss neck, pulling the collar of his shirt aside as he nips at Dean’s collarbone. Somehow, he finds the will to push Castiel away once more.

“No. Cass,” All he gets is a blank stare. Sighing, he adds, “We can’t do this.”

There’s a pause where nothing happens. Dean expects a lot of things from Castiel in this moment. He can see some confusion, maybe a little hurt, but for the most part he gets is full-on Castiel, Angel of the freaking Lord, with a capital “A.” It’s a switch Dean isn’t expecting and it has him backpedaling.

“If you don’t want me –- this,” Castiel says, correcting himself as he glares at him, “All you have to do is say so, Dean.”

“Cass, that’s not --”

But Dean never gets to tell the angel what it’s not as he finds himself with a face full of Impala. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been leaning on the angel.

“Son of a bitch!” Dean shouts at the empty air.

In his frustration, he feels the urge to punch the closest thing to him, but stops himself before he slams his fist into his baby. Sighing, Dean rests his head against his car for an indeterminable amount of time, before hauling himself back to Bobby’s house. He hopes that maybe he can fix this or maybe Castiel won’t remember, but his luck’s never been that good and he can’t imagine that’s about to change anytime soon.

***

Sometime he’d love to be wrong about stuff like this, but the next morning proves him right once again. He knows that things are not all unicorns and sunshine between him and Castiel as soon as the angel opts to ride with Ellen and Jo. Sam comments on it, but Dean ignores him, hoping his brother is still too hungover to dwell on it.

He really needs to stop putting all his eggs in the hope basket.

It’s not until a few weeks after the Lucifer hunt that could, but didn’t that Sam brings it up again. It seems like it’s been both years and days since Ellen and Jo, but it seems even longer since they've talked to Castiel. After rescuing Dean and Sam from Lucifer and depositing them back at the Impala, the angel had flew the coop and had stayed gone. Dean had been trying really hard to pretend he doesn’t know why. He just wishes he could say the same for his brother.

They’re sitting in a motel room with decor that can only be described as a horrible hybrid of medieval and disco themes. It’s not something Dean would have ever thought would have gone together, and he’d been right. Sam sits at a sorry looking table with swords for legs and a mirrored top, staring at his laptop.

“Heard from Cass lately?” Sam asks, out of the blue.

“He hasn’t called,” Dean says, as he lounges on the bed, flipping through the channels.

“Have you called him?”

Dean grunts at him, irritated, but of course Sam won’t let it go.

“What was that?”

“I said no, bitch. Can’t those giant-sized ears of yours get good reception from over there?”

Sam snorts, but doesn’t say anything for awhile. He leaves it alone for so long that Dean starts to think his brother might really drop it this time, but once again…

“Maybe you should give him a call.”

“Is there something you want to say to me, Sam?” Dean asks, leaning up to glare at his little brother.

“I don’t know, Dean, is there something you want to tell  _me_?”

They eye each other, neither backing down. When Dean can’t take it anymore he sighs and lays back down, staring up at the ceiling.

“There’s nothing to tell, Sammy.”

“Don’t give me that,” Sam says, swinging toward him, “We’ve known Cass for almost two years now and for most of that time you’ve seen or  talked to him almost everyday and now he’s suddenly a no-show?”

“Maybe he’s busy.”

“Of course he’s busy, but somehow he always seemed to find enough time for you.”

“Us.”

Sam pauses, “What?’

“You mean us.”

He hears Sam stand up and cross the room, the edge of Dean’s bed dipping when his brother sits down.

“No Dean, I meant you.”

Dean blinks up at the ceiling, “Why?”

“Because it’s always been you. Don’t get me wrong, Cass and I are friends. Good friends. But lets be honest, there’s something going on between you two.”

“Oh yeah?” Dean grumbles, shoving halfheartedly at his brother’s back with his foot, “What’s that “Dear Abby”?”

“Look, I don’t know what it is, Dean. All I know is you’ve been moping around for weeks and yeah, I can blame some of that on what happened with Ellen and Jo, but not all of it.”

“Is there a reason you’re bringing this up?”

“You need to go fix it.”

“Fix it?”

He can almost hear his little brother roll his eyes, “Whatever it is you did wrong.”

At that Dean sits up, beyond pissed, even though the person he’s mad at isn’t sitting on the bed next to him. Right now, that seems to be only a minor detail.

“I didn’t do anything wrong, damn it! I was trying to do the right thing!”

Sam shrugs, as he gets up from the bed and crosses back over to his computer, “Doesn’t matter.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dean asks, as he watches his brother pack his laptop into his bag.

“It means, I’m walking over to that all-night diner next door.”

“Um, okay?”

Sam slings the bag over his shoulder and heads towards the door, stopping as he opens it. He turns and smiles at Dean, “It means fix it, Dean, or you’ll always regret it.”

With that Sam leaves. Dean sits there a little longer, watching the spot where his little brother had last been standing. He imagines Sam left to give Dean plenty of space for whatever the hell it is Sam thinks he should do. But as Dean mulls it over, he decides this place isn’t right. He’s up and out the door before he knows it. He slides into the chilly seats of the Impala, his baby’s heater quick to warm him up, like always. At least some relationships are easy.

They speed down the road after road until he reaches a small park and finds a secluded spot. He gets out, leans against the car and pulls out his phone. He stares at the screen for a good three minutes before pressing the send button. He listens to it ring once, then twice. He starts to get nervous on the third ring and feels like the ground has dropped out from under him on the fourth.

Dean is seconds away from hanging up after the fifth ring, when he hears that blessed click on the other end.

“Dean?”

“Cass…” Dean breaths out a sigh of relief.

It sounds strangled and it must put Castiel on high alert because he can hear the concern in the angel’s voice as he asks, “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

“I’m at Sander’s Park in Wyoming. Look man, I --”

Dean doesn’t bother continuing, since Castiel appears almost on top of him. The angel is scanning the area, looking for possible threats. He moves away from Dean, Castiel’s back to him as he pays close attention to a nearby cluster of trees.

“Cass --”

“There’s nothing here,” the angel says, turning back to look at Dean.

“No, there’s not. I just --”

“It sounded like you were in danger.”

Dean fights to urge to punch him. Castiel may be falling, but he figures the hit would still hurt him more than it would the angel.

“Well I’m not. I wanted to --”

“You can’t summon me for no reason, Dean,” Castiel says, in a huff, “I’m searching for my Father.”

“I know you are, but --”

“It’s an important mission, whether you believe in it or not.”

“It get that, but that’s not why I --”

“I’m not here for your amusement, Dean. If you’ll excuse me.”

Castiel turns to leave and Dean has had it. He grabs the angel’s arm as he shouts, “Don’t you dare fly your feathery ass off somewhere, you hardheaded son of a bitch!”

The angel glares at him, but Dean still doesn’t care. He shoves at Castiel, pushing the angel up against the Impala. Dean’s not an idiot. Somewhere under the very thick haze of hurt and anger, he realizes that Castiel doesn’t have to be pushed around. He knows that the angel backed up willingly. Dean knows he’s still not really in control of this situation, but damned if he cares at this point.

He crowds Castiel, “Why won’t you ever let me finish a sentence, goddamn it? This is all your fault, you know.”

“My fault?” Castiel growls out, voice low.

“Yeah, yours,” Dean says, pushing against Castiel for good measure, “You won’t let me talk now. You wouldn’t let me talk in Bobby’s garage --”

“I think you said as much as you needed to say, Dean. I fully understood your position, trust me.”

Dean snorts, some of the anger going out of him, “Yeah, except the part where you didn’t.”

“Dean --”

He figures he’ll just go for broke. Dean kisses him, trying to convey in that one gesture all the longing, and all those sleepless nights he’s had this past month, because he’ll never be able to tell Castiel how much he missed him. Hell, if anything this whole mess is a testament to that. He’s always believed that actions speak louder than words, and god how he hopes the angel can hear him.

Castiel never responds to the kiss and after a few seconds, Dean pulls away. The angel just stares at him, as unreadable as he used to be when they’d first met. The only straw he has to grasp at here is the fact that Castiel hasn’t vanished yet. Dean guesses it’s at least a place to start.

“I wasn’t saying no to you, Cass. I was saying no to the timing,” Dean rushes to get it out, not wanting the angel to slip out from under him like the last time.

Something flickers across the angel’s face, breaking up that blank stare, “What?”

“You were drunk, man.”

“I wasn’t that drunk.”

He's about to argue, but decides that's not the best course of action and concedes the point.

“Yeah well, I didn’t know that. Besides, I --” Dean shrugs, glancing away for a second, “Things were leading to places that I just… Look, I just felt like that wasn’t the right way to do this. I didn’t want…”

Dean trails off because he doesn’t know how to say what he wants to say. They stand there, staring at each other.

“You were trying to protect my virtue?”

“Jesus Cass, what? No! I mean, I guess kind of… God, don’t call it that!”

He watches the angel do that ridiculous head tilt thing of his. He figures Castiel’s look of confusion is in equal parts due to what’s been said and the heat Dean can feel burning across his cheeks. If Castiel ever tells anyone Dean’s blushing, he will deny it until the day he dies. And if he comes back from the dead again, as Winchesters have a habit of doing, he’ll deny it then too.

“I just didn’t want that to be your first time for all that stuff. It just -- It wasn’t the right time for something like… That,” Dean concludes, sounding lame even to his ears.

“Oh.”

Dean waits for more, but get’s nothing. Castiel just continues studying him and he’s relatively certain this angel is going to be the end of him.

“That’s all you’ve got to say?”

Castiel’s brow furrows, as if this question requires some deep thought and who the hell knows, maybe it does. All Dean knows is that minutes are passing and they’re still just standing there. Castiel has to be trying to do him in. There is no other reasonable explanation.

“Is this a good time, Dean?” the angel asks, voice solemn.

“ _Ohmyfuckinggod_ _Cass,_ ” Dean breathes as he let’s his head fall to the angel’s shoulder, “You really are trying to kill me.”

The shoulder his head rests on bounces as Castiel chuckles. Dean feels warm lips press against his temple.

“I would just have to find a way to bring you back.”

“And that’s too much work for just me, huh?” Dean asks, smiling as he wraps his arms around the angel, pulling him closer as they lean against the Impala.

“I would much rather work  _with_  you on some uh, other things."

Dean laughs, as he pulls back to look at Castiel, “Is that supposed to be some kind of pickup line?”

The slightest of grins tugs at the corner of Castiel’s mouth, “I have no idea.”

“It’s not a very good one.”

“Apologies.”

Dean shrugs as he leans in for another kiss, “I’ll give you this one.”


End file.
